Reported Speech:
- We use the reported speech when we want to say what someone else said. Phil said he was going to come to the party.
- Tenses, pronouns, and time and place words are often different in reported speech compared to direct speech.
If the reporting verb is in the past, we usually have to change the tense of what the person actually said.
- simple present → simple past 'I am upset,' said Adrian. → Adrian said (that) he was upset.
- present continuous → past continuous 'I am studying Chinese,' said Don. → Don said (that) he was studying Chinese.
- present perfect simple → past perfect simple 'I have passed the test,' said Sally. → Sally said (that) she had passed the test.
- present perfect continuous → past perfect continuous 'I've been phoning people all morning,' said Rich. → rich said (that) he had been phoning people all morning.
- simple past → past perfect simple 'I went to a private school', said Alex. → Alex said (that) he had gone to a private school.
- past continuous → past perfect continuous 'We were talking about football,' said Mary. → Mary said (that) they had been talking about football.
- am/is/are going to → was/were going to 'We're going to eat soon', said Paul. → Paul said (that) they were going to eat soon.
Note: We often don't make any changes to the verb tense when we are reporting a scientific fact or when something is still true. 'Italy is in Europe', said the geography teacher. → The geography teacher said that Italy is in Europe.
- Modal changes:
If the reporting verb is in the past, we also usually have to change some modals.
- will → would 'I'll be there at eight', said Rod. → Rod said (that) he would be there at eight.
- can → could 'I can swim', said Bob. → Bob said (that) he could swim.
- must/have to → had to 'I must go soon', said Fiona. → Fiona said (that) she had to go soon.
- May → Might 'I may need some help,' said Tanya. → Tanya said (that) she might need some help.
We also usually have to change words connected to time and place.
- here → there 'I wish Jason was here,' said Adam. → Adam said (that) he wished Jason was there.
- now/at the moment → then or that moment 'I'm doing it now,'said Dawn. → Dawn said (that) she was doing it at that moment.
- today → that day 'I'll call Bill today,' said Ben. → Ben said (that) he would call Bill that day.
- tomorrow → the following day or the next day 'I'll do it tomorrow,' said Monica. → Monica said (that) she would do it the following day.
- next week/month/year → the following week/month/year 'I'll see you next week,'said Fred → Fred said (that) he would see me the following week.
- tonight → that night 'I'll do it tonight,' said Barbara. → Barbara said (that) she would do it that night.
- yesterday → the day before or the previous day 'I passed my driving test yesterday,'said Bob. → Bob said (that) he had passed his driving test the day before.
- last week/month/year → the previous week/month/year 'I went there last year,' said Gloria. → Gloria said (that) she had been there the year before.
- ago → before 'I finished an hour ago,' said Francis. → Francis said (that) he had finished an hour before.
Reported Questions:
- We use reported questions when we want to say what someone else asked. Phil asked if he could come to the party.
- We use the same rules regarding tense, pronoun and time and place word changes with reported questions as we do with reported speech.
- Have, do or be and modal questions:
- If a direct question begins with the verbs have, do or be, or a modal (will, can, may, etc), we use if or whether in the reported question. This is the kind of direct question which requires the answer yes or no. 'Have you seen Pablo in the concert, Jake?' asked Carl. → Carl asked Jake if/whether he had seen Pablo in concert.
- Wh- questions:
- With questions beginning with what, who, which, when, where, why and how we do not use if or whether. we use the same question word as we used in the direct question, but we do not use the question for and we do change tenses, modals, etc. 'Why did you go there?' asked Alan. → Alan asked me why I had gone there.